holoblomo day 5: ballad

note: “holoblomo” stands for Horribly Local Blogging Month, my response to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) that happens every November. The NaNoWriMo challenge asks writers to compose 50,000 words in a month; I chose 10,000 as my goal. Enjoy.

So here we are.

It’s incredible how seemingly random things in life intertwine. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching the Harry Belafonte HBO documentary, blown away by my underestimation of his activism over the decades, and suddenly I had a revelation: music plays heavily in the world of the oppressed, but not so much with the oppressors. There is no opposite of “We Shall Overcome.” No one does a revue of Gestapo folk songs; at least, not just for the reasons you’d think.

Less than a week after this epiphany, I was in rehearsal for a brief concert staging of TOMFOOLERY, a revue of music by the brilliant Tom Lehrer. I was familiar with many of his songs, but not all of them. And then came this lyric in “Folk Song Army,” a satirical look at the folk protest movement:

Remember the war against Franco

That’s the kind where each of us belongs

Though he may have won all the battles

We had all the good songs

So my realization was only beaten by about 50 years... by one of the greats, no less.

I guess when your agenda is about crushing people’s sprits or freedoms, you either can’t sing about it, don’t feel like singing about it, or are too tired from all the aforementioned crushing to sing about it. 

True, now that I think about it, the Tim Robbins film Bob Roberts was all about a political candidate who used Dylan-esque folk songs (“This Land is My Land”) to push a decidedly darker agenda, but those songs weren’t particularly overt. 

And really... what exactly would the dictators sing? Would it go like this?

Fight on for evil

Keep your head held high

Otherwise the rabble

Might stab you in the eye

Fight on for evil

You must do your worst

If they want to kill you

You’ve got to kill them first

Hmmm... that sounds more like a dictator’s alma mater or school fight song than it does an earnest ballad for suppression.

Is it that the oppressors don’t know how to sing? Or is it that the wealthy, powerful ones are too busy being powerful and counting their money to take the time to write songs? Because in a parallel universe, there might be counter-rallies at the Occupy movements, singing this:

We are the one percent

It is the fun percent

And all the ninety-nine

Can go eat cake and wine

Because it’s pretty clear

How all of us got here

We worked so hard, we did

(Plus we inherited)

The proletariat

They ain’t seen nothin’ yet

Because there’s always more

To borrow from the poor

The wider the divide

Means they can’t reach our side

But we can’t let them know

That we despise them so

So rally on, my friends

Because our cause depends

On the wealthy and the healthy and the stealthy leading the way...

And we’ll keep on putting the “us” in the U.S.A.!

Yipe. It’s a pretty bad song. I guess music doesn’t exactly lend itself to evil... with the exceptions of everything sung by Disney villains. 

Disclaimer: the songs in this post were written purely for sarcastic and humorous purposes. I am not pushing any personal agenda, but I also sure as hell don’t want anyone singing them in earnest. Since they’re so ridiculous, I’m not sure I have to worry about that... but you never know. So don’t you go forwarding them to any dictators or C.E.O.s. 

And that’s 2145 words.

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.